Union Squared Conservatory of Music sets the scene for the romantic tale of Jimmy Featherstone and Joe Marcheso, two guys in tune with their muses and each other

Jimmy Featherstone (left) plopped himself in Joe Marcheso's lap after seeing him conduct "the student orchestra brilliantly." They wed at City Hall on Nov. 5 and held a reception for 175 at Bimbo's on Nov. 11.

Jimmy Featherstone (left) plopped himself in Joe Marcheso's lap after seeing him conduct "the student orchestra brilliantly." They wed at City Hall on Nov. 5 and held a reception for 175 at Bimbo's on Nov. 11.

Photo: Elena Graham

Photo: Elena Graham

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Jimmy Featherstone (left) plopped himself in Joe Marcheso's lap after seeing him conduct "the student orchestra brilliantly." They wed at City Hall on Nov. 5 and held a reception for 175 at Bimbo's on Nov. 11.

Jimmy Featherstone (left) plopped himself in Joe Marcheso's lap after seeing him conduct "the student orchestra brilliantly." They wed at City Hall on Nov. 5 and held a reception for 175 at Bimbo's on Nov. 11.

Photo: Elena Graham

Wedding bells chime in opera of the heart

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Jimmy Featherstone has long been outgoing. He was only 6 when he began to sing - at home, at church and in the car on the way to the grocery store.

At 18, the sociable, self-professed choir nerd from Southern California enrolled in San Francisco's Conservatory of Music. On the way to his first class, he met a girl who became his best friend. Within weeks he had a coterie of pals. Within three months, he met the man who would change his life forever.

That person was Joe Marcheso, another Conservatory student who was pursuing a master's degree in conducting. Unlike Jimmy, he was reserved. He had come from New York City, where he had a tight-knit group of friends who kept to themselves. He was unaccustomed to reaching out - or being reached out to.

But on Nov. 5, 2005, after conducting a concert by the Conservatory's student orchestra, that changed. Joe attended a party at a friend's house, still wearing his maestro's tuxedo, a bottle of Champagne in hand. He eased into in a chair. Within moments, there was someone in his lap, helping himself to a drink. It was Jimmy.

"I thought he was so mysterious and sexy," recalled Jimmy. "I had seen him conduct the student orchestra brilliantly. It was exciting to meet someone so talented."

Joe was taken aback, and then he was pleased. "It seemed emblematic of coming to a new place with people who were much younger than I was," he recalled. "It confirmed I had made the right decision to move here."

On their first date six days later, they went to see "Brundibar" at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where Jimmy was the understudy for the title role. Afterward, they had dinner at Rose Pistola in North Beach. "The food was bad," recalled Joe, "but the company was good."

The romance progressed. Joe took Jimmy for rides on his Vespa. "I really fell in love with him driving through Chinatown," Jimmy said, "with the fog and the moon and Telegraph Hill."

Their love of opera was a shared connection, even if their personalities proved to be opposite.

"I'm very much the caretaker and he is more the musician, the mad scientist-type personality," Jimmy said. "He keeps me a little more laid-back and I keep him organized and on track."

Two years later, Jimmy moved in to Joe's apartment on Russian Hill, undaunted by the 13-year age difference.

Joe had been ambivalent about commitment, but Jimmy offered a candor he found compelling and attractive.

"I don't know if it was right after I graduated or right before, but he gave me a lecture about how I was in danger of becoming a loser, that I was coasting by and that I really needed to be more serious pursuing my career goals," Joe said. "He spoke to me with great care and sensitivity and bluntness. I appreciated it, and I kept it in the back of my mind when I plotted how I would continue."

And, Joe added, "If I had met him when I was younger, I may not have recognized those qualities. You don't appreciate how rare they are until you fail to have those with other people."

Joe, whose father passed away last December, vowed to make his next Christmas more cheerful. At dinner in Los Angeles on Valentine's Day, he popped the question.

On Nov. 5, seven years to the day they met, Joe, now 38 and a rehearsal conductor for the San Francisco Opera, tied the knot with Jimmy, now 25, a traveling opera stage manager who has legally changed his last name to Marcheso.

Among those in attendance at the ceremony at San Francisco City Hall were Jimmy's mother, Connie Bowman, a first-grade teacher, and Joe's mother, Marcella Marcheso, a retired American embassy worker in London.

On Nov. 11, the couple hosted a reception for 175 guests at Bimbo's. The party had a supper club theme with Indian food and the Royal Jazz Society Orchestra providing entertainment.

"It's true love," said Bowman. "When you see your child choking up during his vows and happiness in his face, you know."

Marcheso, in words that could only be spoken by a mother, said Joe is now "more relaxed, kinder, less arrogant and less selfish" than before he met Jimmy.

"Jimmy," she said, "is very sweet and kind. "Anyone who loves my son is OK with me."